Here’s a little recipe that I came up with using what was left in my fridge. I went fishing in May and caught some delicious lingcod. The other veggies are from my garden, and a friend of ours gave us some home made enchilada sauce.

Heat Skillet medium/high heat. Heat oil. Add onions and cook for five minutes. Add garlic to skillet and cook for additional two minutes. Then add tomatillos, poblano pepper, lime juice, and tomato. Cook until onion is translucent, or another 5 or so minutes. Add cod, cook for another 7-10 minutes.

Serve with taco shells, salsa, etc :] Happy eating!

Lingcod caught out of Newport, Oregon

Skillet full of goodness!

My favorite tomatos… Sun Gold. I could eat a million.

TACO Toppings

There’s only two kinds of salsa allowed in this house… Emerald Valley or home made.

I took the day off from work today and am spending the day with Mini griff who is on spring break. Fortuantely for me, he LOVES to bake! Mostly, I think he just loves to eat batter, but I’ll take what I can get! So, this morning I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make some blueberry muffins… our blueberry bush hasn’t actually started growing any fruit yet, so I had to use frozen bluebs.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Batter Licker

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup of sugar

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 cup of milk

1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp coconut oil

2 1/3 cups of rinsed frozen blueberries

You can sub any milk, really. Mini Griff is allergic to nuts and soy, so we used regular milk.

Have two bowls ready… combine the dry ingredients in the first bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in the second, leaving out the blueberries. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix. Add the blueberries last so they don’t get all smushed.

I used muffin liners, but you can grease the muffin tin just the same. Cook for 20-25 minutes. Cool for at least 5 minutes. Consume.

So much of my life has changed in the last four or so years of not posting, lol. But, I won’t bore anyone with the non-relevant details.

I will say, however, I garden now. I may not be excellent at it, but I am learning. And after the snow this year, I lost the majority of my fall harvest. What’s left: brussel sprouts, red cabbage, kale, spinach, strawberries, and onions. Today and yesterday actually felt like spring! So, hubby and I weeded the garden to get ready for new planting. And I collected some spinach and kale…

So, ultimately I needed a new kale recipe. After scouring the internet, I found some delicious contenders and ultimately settled with:

**WARNING: THE FOLLOWING RECIPE IS NOTVEGAN**
(but you’d probably figure that out when you got the “butter” and “cheese” part)

And holy moly, people. Don’t walk, run, to make this recipe! It’s an amazing medley of flavors and soooo easy to make…

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons butter

¼ cup diced onion

1 red pepper, diced

1 yellow pepper, diced

8 oz. baby portobello mushrooms, sliced

4 cups kale

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

¼ cup Asiago cheese

salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt one tablespoon of butter. Add the onions and peppers; saute for several minutes until softened. Add the mushrooms and one tablespoon butter; saute for several minutes until browned.

Add the kale, garlic, and balsamic vinegar. Saute until the kale is deep green but not yet wilted. Remove from heat and serve topped with Asiago or Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I’m not going to state that I am even capable of posting religiously… but here’s a new recipe :D

I came a across a blog recently that’s got some great recipes, The Snacking Squirrel. She just posted about some pizza she has made I decided I needed to hop to and make it! It’s got some pretty unique ingredients that I questioned at first, but in the end it was delicious. I changed a few things around from the original recipe and doubled it…

Mix wet and dry ingredients together and put batter into a baking pan. Spread out with a spatula. Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes. I actually didn’t let mine cook long enough and it was rather mushy as an end result, so make sure you cook it enough.

Step Five:

Use your favorite pasta sauce. The original recipe calls for adding salsa, which I did, but it didn’t really suite my taste.

Vegetable Nom-Noms

Spread pizza crust with sauce and add your favorite toppings. I chose spinach, broccoli, green peppers, and tomatoes. I used mozzarella on half and spread Daiya vegancheese on the other half.

Step Six: Place pizza back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes till the cheese browns a bit.

So, looking at my blog stats it’s hard to ignore that the most searched phrase for people to end up at my obviously awesome blog is “How to sneak meat into vegetarian meals” which is seriously messed up.

My birthday was this week and she was awesome enough to buy me some vegan cake from a bakery here in town. And OMG was it amazing. Word’s can not describe the flavor explosion in my mouth. Here’s some pics:

Chocolote & Kahlua and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Crunch

Sweet Life Patisserie

I turned 21 again!!

So it was delish, and my birthday was so much fun and she and I are taking a trip to that bakery so I can stock up on goodies!

So, since I last posted lots of changes have happened. For starters- I moved 3000 miles away from Florida and am a fresh resident of Eugene, Oregon! It was sort of a sudden change, but I am now living with Shmitty, the original bet-er, and she and I are attempting to achieve a vegan lifestyle together, but cheese is still the #1 culprit. A good portion of our meals are vegan, though. We’ve done a lot of experimenting with faux meats, which, I’ll tell you what, can be friggin delish, but we’d like to pull away from those.

Some personal discoveries:

I still HATE tofu. K- not really a discovery, but I’ve tried. A lot.

New and rare ingredients are fun, not only to attempt to find, but use.

Oregon has so many options for me! Love that people know what being a vegan means and that restaurants have options.

I’m not just doing this because I’m competitive anymore (see paragraph 3). This means a lot more to me now. I’m still not interested in preaching to everyone who still partakes in eating meat, but I encourage everyone to think about where their food is coming from and what they are ingesting. And rent Food, Inc.!!!! This is bigger than me and my health (which is still incredibly important) but the food industry is incredibly effed up- and the general public just turns a blind eye because the problem has gotten so vast. America needs some serious change, and for the love, we need to put a serious slow down on our consumption and reliance on corn.